It is Joanna Lumley’s 63rd birthday. (63!) Be sure to pay a visit to your neighborhood liquor store, offie (it looks like I meant to type “office” here – that works, too,) LCBO or – for the prepared – kitchen. I know that she wants us all to have at least one bottle of champagne in her honor.
The Eastern Shore is the hottest place I’ve ever lived. This is a fact: it is usually 10 to 20 degrees warmer here than it is at home in Western PA. It’s no end of fun to remind my family of this when they are buried under sixteen inches of snow or getting frost-bitten at negative twelve. And it’s really enjoyable to get Spring in the middle of March as opposed to the middle of May.
However, when summer strikes, it makes me want to die. I seriously wilt under the heat. I go delirious while pumping gas. I throw up during the first few hot days (no lie – it happened two years ago, last year and this past Monday.) My body is just not made to handle so much direct sun, so much humidity or so much sustained heat.
Thanks to NPR’s new energy grid interactive map, I am able to prove to you visually that this is not all in my head. When looking at the solar power potential map, I noticed that not only am I from a lighter shade of orange (lower solar exposure) but from an anomalous blob that is TWO shades of orange lighter.
Not that it helps at all on 100º days…
As some of you may well know, Neil Gaiman came to Washington College yesterday. This was a huge deal as far as Chestertown was concerned but an even bigger deal for Kate, who has been a Neil Gaiman fan since her teen years. In fact, she apparently made her dad take her to a comic shop in London when she was 16 (they were already in England, don’t worry) so she could meet him at a signing.
You can imagine how chuffed she was to be introducing him here as a literary professional.
I haven’t heard yet all of the minutia of Neil’s visit and Kate’s time with him – and I’m sure there are some amazing stories – but I can say that her introduction to his reading and Q&A last night was stupendous and it seemed as though Neil had a truly fun time being here. So, despite the stress of moving the venue three times, the chaos of bringing in such a major author and the logistics of making the actual day/evening happen, it was well worth it.
At the very least, for Kate. 🙂
I’m just saying, if the swine flu outbreak is the “pandemic” that causes FEMA to use all of those hermetically sealed coffins and dissenters to a mandatory vaccine are rounded up to places like Denver International Airport, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
*all taken with a truck of salt, I hope*
I’m not going to buy another gadget this year. I’m going to try my very best to not buy a new iPhone, computer, pair of headphones, stereo, HD receiver, etc. I’m inspired by this site, which just seems like a cute idea done well and with a purpose:
Keep me honest, guys. Don’t let me fail at this one.
you’ll have wanted to read this post that pretty much captures my feelings about GM:
GM to take the summer off – The Awl
As though you didn’t already know how I feel on the matter.
Digg tipped me off to this great collection of images from Flickr user, Legofesto. Each photo is of Lego recreations of news headlines from the war on terror in Iraq. If you could say something is a “favorite” out of such subject matter, I’d have to choose this:
The little Lego grins are what really get me.
You can see more by visiting Legofesto’s photostream. It seems like an ongoing project, so check back often.
You know you need to get to a bigger town when you find yourself loading a video clip onto your iPhone before going to the the hair salon as the only means of ensuring that you will get anything close to the cut you are after.
I do not necessarily endorse this song/band but I like the lead singer’s haircut and think mine will probably look like that once the summer humidity hits.
